


Connections

by velveteenvamp



Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: Bittersweet Ending, Character Study, Crisis of Faith, Domestic Violence, Gen, If you squint you could see KatexAngel, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Kate is v broken, No Dialogue, Trevor is a horrible father, parental neglect
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-18
Updated: 2020-03-18
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:02:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23201392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/velveteenvamp/pseuds/velveteenvamp
Summary: Connections can sometimes form in the most expected of places.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	Connections

Detective Kate Lockley couldn't remember the last time she actually _had_ faith. Or if she had even had it in the first place. After all, the cross necklace she wore around her neck every day had long lost its connection to spirituality. Wearing it was more of a habit, one last remaining connection to her mother's church. It was a nice thought, that there was some benevolent force out there, but the more she saw of the world, the harder Kate found to believe in it. 

Sometimes she wondered if she had just been born a hardened realist, a cynic destined to spend her nights looking down the glass of the same old drinks in the same old bars, night after night. The cacophony of noises around her blurred into an indistinguishable mess, it was all pointless, she couldn't help but feel. She craved a connection, something to make her feel less numb, but it never came. All she wanted was to feel alive ~~\--~~ often she'd think to herself that she was like the living dead; she _looked_ normal, sure, but inside, there was nothing there ~~\--~~ for all intents and purposes, she might as well have just been a corpse, re-animated to repeat the same thing every goddamn day. She'd deduced a long time ago that she was unfixable, beyond being able to shed the defences she had so meticulously crafted for her own protection. 

* * *

On the force, she had heard plenty of stories about how the job made even the most optimistic of people morph into pessimistic shells of their former selves. The older officers would tell her that they had once been like her, young and full of life, hoping to make a difference before the system crushed them down. But naivety wasn't something that the only child of Trevor Lockley had ever been in possession of. Innocence had never had a chance to bloom in their household under his calloused thumb. While her friends would scrawl out wish-lists to Santa, Kate abstained because her father had never given her any illusions about the world ~~\--~~ he said he was doing her a favour, that _all_ illusions were harmful.

Growing up, Kate tried to justify his behaviour to herself. _He didn't have an easy job_ , she'd think. _Being a single parent couldn't be easy._ But she knew the real reason why he had also died the day her mother had; it was the fact that Kate looked uncannily like her. Maybe he thought that she didn't notice the pain in his eyes every day, but she had always been more observant than he had ever given her credit for. Whenever she tried to talk to him, he'd shut her down and so she stopped. Eventually, she stopped trying to think about her own feelings and so she focused on whatever came her way: studies, relationships that went nowhere, a career. 

Maybe it was why the first and only long-term relationship she'd had went south at a remarkable rate, because she didn't even understand her own feelings let alone anyone else's. At first, he was wonderful and gave her the attention she had always so deeply longed for. He told her all the right things: she was _pretty_ (a compliment she so seldom received), hard-working, smart... he knew exactly what to say. Then when they moved in together, he stopped being so nice. Flowers were replaced with angry messages on the answerphone, late nights in each other's arms turned into late night shouting matches and then one day, he hit her. 

The strike had stunned her at first, but when her mind seemed to start working again, she told him to get the hell out. Then she covered the bruise across her face with more makeup than usual and never told anybody about what had happened. Because Kate Lockley _wasn't_ a victim and no one was _ever_ going to think that she was helpless. 

So she went particularly hard on guys who were in for hurting women, taunting them and roughing them up far more than was objectively needed. It was fucked up, she knew, but it was the only way she could get the feelings that kept her up at night out of her system. 

* * *

After staying late at work like she always did, Kate would change into a nice looking dress and go out, pretending like something was really going to happen. Being around other fuck-ups at least made her feel a little better, if only for a few minutes. No one knew her as the lesser-Lockley, she was just another patron out there trying to find a connection ~~\--~~ whatever that meant. 

One night, she found her answer. It had started out normally, just her, a vodka and lemonade and mindless music and conversations swirling around her. Then _he_ sat next to her and they started talking. He was all tall and brooding, he had a darkness about him that suggested that something had screwed him up a long time ago. A kinship she recognised all too well. Neither of them trusted others and they were both in the business of solving mysteries. Maybe that's what a connection was after all, the kind of solidarity that could only be found by chance. 

That night, Kate went home feeling like slightly less of an abject disappointment and for the first time in a long time, she slept without a dose of Ambien. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I've been re-watching Angel and absolutely adoring Kate's character this time around; the inspiration for this just kind of came out of nowhere and I decided to run with it and see what happened. The line about perhaps not having had faith in the first place was inspired by a line from the (very underrated!) TV series Life--Kate and Detective Dani Reese actually have quite a bit in common. Like usual with my fics, I did very minimal editing, hopefully it didn't read like total word salad!


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